Desktop personal computers (PC) are essential working tools for many professionals today. Desktop PCs brought not only access to information and increased productivity, but also many inherent problems. These problems include: high costs, low-reliability issues, poor information and physical security, high power consumption and production of heat, noise, electromagnetic radiation, wasted space and poor central management. For these reasons and others, many organizations are seeking economical alternatives for desktop PCs.
In recent years, thin-client computing devices became a popular alternative for desktop PCs.
As thin-clients are built around the concept of remote processing and remote management, very little local maintenance and interaction is needed to operate such devices. Thin-clients to some extent are capable of running local applications just like PCs.
Typical existing thin-clients are built as a desktop appliance connected to the wall infrastructure with a power cord and with a Local Area Network (LAN) cable and connected to the various desktop peripherals such as display, keyboard and mouse by additional cabling. Thin-clients are connected via LAN or through Wide Area Network (WAN) to remote servers where applications are run and data is stored. This type of thin-client appliance takes desktop space and depends on connection of various cables. Installation of This type of thin-client appliance is complex, time consuming and cumbersome due to the necessity to connect all the cables. Often, the device also needs to be physically secured to the desk with additional physical securing cable and lock to prevent tempering and theft.
Today there are some simple functions that designed to fit inside a LAN or mains jack such as network switches and wireless Access Points Another option known in the art is the integration of the thin-client inside the display device. While this option saves the video cable connection and also reduces desktop space, it suffers from the inherent maintenance problems of coupling the two functions together. This type of integration tends to complicate maintenance and to increase the solution price. It may be advantageous to separate these two functions for operational flexibility, ease of maintenance and proper asset management.
Yet another option known in the art is the integration of the thin-client function inside the keyboard enclosure. This setup saves one cable—the keyboard connection. This solution is undesirable since keyboards are susceptible to mechanical failures and fluid damages, therefore maintenance problems using this combination are unavoidable.
Still another option known in the art is the integration of computer/thin-client inside a touch pad or a mouse. This method is undesirable due to technical and operational problems including heavy weigh and high temperature that interfere with the mouse function and the need to connect many cables.
Thus, there exists a need for a computing device which overcomes these problems and provides organizations and installation sites with a simple thin-client computing device that has minimum connected wiring and takes minimum desktop space. A computing device that can be easily deployed over existing or new network infrastructure, a device that requires minimal and simple installation.
Generally, computing devices are constructed as one “mother board” to which essential or optional boards or components are plugged using connectors or cables.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,710,704 (Fisher, et al. Mar. 23, 2004) titled “Power transfer apparatus for concurrently transmitting data and power over data wires” discloses a power supply current, sufficient to power a remote network device which is transmitted concurrently with a network data signal over a transmission line.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,547,602 (Price, et al. Apr. 15, 2003) titled “Modular plug receptacles defined by multiple electronic components” discloses an integrated modular plug receptacle package wherein one or more modular plug receptacles, or jacks, are defined by bringing two or more PC cards into operable communication, such as within the card slot cavity of a portable computer. In addition to PC cards, various electronic device components may have formed on a surface thereof modular jack portions enabling them to be operably connected to a similarly equipped component, thereby also defining a modular connector.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,813 (Kunz, et al. Oct. 26, 1999) titled “RJ-45 modular connector with microwave-transmission-line integrated signal conditioning for high speed networks” discloses a modular connector comprises an insulating housing that accepts an RJ-45 style jack from its front, and a molded insert from the opposite said molded insert includes a signal conditioning circuit that provides a proper electrical coupling between a physical interface device or encoder/decoder and an unshielded twisted pair cable to a high speed computer network.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,039 (Buswell, et al. Jun. 29, 1999) titled “Method and apparatus for display of windowing application programs on a terminal” discloses a video display terminal capable of operating with a graphical user interface such as Windows, providing functionality to permit use of popular applications programs resident on a server, without requiring more than application data to be transmitted from the server, and keyboard and mouse information to be transmitted from the terminal to the server. In addition, a method for updating terminal operating characteristics over a communications link from a host is disclosed.
Other general background information may be found in the following patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 6,885,674 (Hunt, et al. Apr. 26, 2005), Communications system for providing broadband communications using a medium voltage cable of a power system
U.S. Pat. No. 6,888,790 (Kilani May 3, 2005), Frame synchronization technique for OFDM based modulation scheme
U.S. Pat. No. 6,373,377 (Sacca, et al. Apr. 16, 2002), Power supply with digital data coupling for power-line networking
U.S. Pat. No. 6,074,086 (Yonge, III Jun. 13, 2000), Synchronization of OFDM signals with improved windowing
U.S. Pat. No. 6,040,759 (Sanderson Mar. 21, 2000), Communication system for providing broadband data services using a high-voltage cable of a power system
Operation of thin-client concept is described in IBM Document “Implementing Windows Terminal Server and Citrix MetaFrame on IBM xSeries Servers” dated April 2003.
Additional information can be found in:
“A Comparison of Thin-Client Computing Architectures,” Network Computing Laboratory, Columbia University, Dated November 2000.
A description of important industry relevant standards can be found in the following References:
IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet standard
IEEE High Power Over Ethernet proposed standard draft
HomePlug 1.0 Industry Standard
IEEE 802.3u Fast Ethernet standard
ANSI NEMA-WD6-2002 wiring devices—dimensional specifications
ANSI/TIA/EIA-568 Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard
ANSI/TIA/EIA-569 Commercial Building Telecommunications Pathways and Spaces
3Com® IntelliJack™ Switch NJ225 product brochure
Technical Paper—3Com® NJ205 IntelliJack™ Switch Management Feature: Location Mapping